Is Another Assassination of Jean Dominique about to Take Place?

(Eleven years ago today, on 3 April 2000, in the courtyard of Radio Haiti-Inter on the Route de Delmas in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, journalist and free man Jean-Léopold Dominique, and Radio Haiti's caretaker, Jean-Claude Louissaint, were gunned down, and Haiti lost one of the most powerful advocates for a free press and the enfranchisement of the peasant majority that the nation had ever seen. Less than a year later, his widow, Michèle Montas - herself a great journalist - delivered the following editorial over the airwaves of Radio Haiti Inter about her quest for justice. I reprint it here in the memory of Dominique, Louissaint and Radio Haiti Inter itself. MD)

Is Another Assassination of Jean Dominique about to Take Place?

Michèle Montas Dominique

Radio Haiti Inter Editorial 3/3/02

(Read the original article here)

Today is March 3, and 23 months ago a journalist committed to the struggle for change was assassinated. That shameful crime aroused indignation throughout the entire country. Such an example of growing impunity brings the attention of the world upon Haiti today.

On the same date last year, on March 3, 2001, twenty-six organizations from the civil society wrote to the head of the Haitian State. "This committed journalist," said the letter "was not killed under the dictatorships that he had so bravely fought. He was assassinated at a time when a government whose efforts he was supporting toward more justice and stronger institutions was promising, just like you, the rule of law and the end of impunity... If justice is not served today, in the cases of Jean Dominique and Jean-Claude Louissaint, other irreplaceable individuals will be destroyed by the same murderers or other assassins." And it continued by reminding the duties of the Chief of State: "Article 136 of the Constitution makes you, Mr. President, the person responsible for the stability and preservation of institutions. Article 145 of our Fundamental Law makes you responsible for ensuring that court orders are obeyed," said the open letter to the head of the State.

On this same date last year, March 3, 2001, shortly after that document was broadcasted by our radio station, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide came to Radio Haiti to express his support publicly for the judicial inquiry and pledge that the Executive Branch of government would make available to justice the resources needed to investigate the April 3, 2000 assassinations at Radio Haiti. Today, 23 months later, facts are speaking louder than words:

Fact: The Chief of State, who has the direct and exclusive authority to renew Judge Gassant’s mandate, has still not done so although that judge diligently and systematically conducted the investigation for 16 months with courage and competence, not allowing himself to be intimidated by individuals presumed above the law. No explanation was given to thousands of persons who, for 23 months, have been calling for justice in this emblematic case.

Facts: All the resources, i.e. logistical, technical, and financial made available in this judicial case by the preceding government have been cancelled. The special and relatively modest funds which had helped in the success of the trials of Raboteau and Carrefour-Feuille, as well as the funds allocated, among other resources, to the work of the first two investigating judges assigned to the murder cases of Jean Dominique and Jean-Claude Louissaint, allowing them to follow the leads of a difficult investigation in several areas of the countries, were cancelled; so were the resources made available for other investigations such as those about the poisoning of children with diethyl glycol or the kidnapping of baby Nanoune Myrtil at the General Hospital. Among the measures taken to help in the investigation about the murder of the most famous Haitian journalist, police protection was given to the investigating judge and some of the witnesses. Such help is no longer available.

Fact: The Senate of the Republic, composed exclusively of members of Fanmi Lavalas, returned the Jean Dominique file to the investigating judge, asking for a number of documents prior to any decision about lifting Senator Dany Toussaint’s parliamentary immunity, as requested by Judge Gassant; according to jurists, the release of such documents would amount to a flagrant violation of the investigation’s confidentiality. By doing so, the Senate conferred upon itself the authority of a court, in violation of the separation of powers.

Fact: The Police, which theoretically answers to the Ministry of Justice, has taken no action on some arrest warrants. Witnesses who have refused to appear in court, alleged assassins, or individuals who have openly committed illegal acts go about their businesses freely, in this case as in others. Meanwhile, a new judge is assigned to the cases of Jean Dominique and Jean-Claude Louissaint, not by the Judges’ Association as required by law, but by the Senior Judge of the Civil Court, whose animosity against Judge Claudy Gassant is commonly known.

Fact: Will you say to me: The investigation is making progress? Judge Pierre Josiard Agnant, whose expertise is similar to Judge Gassant’s, heard the plaintiff and summoned an alleged witness and an individual who had been charged, based on previous hearings held by Judge Gassant in the course of the investigation. Senator Toussaint, charged by Judge Gassant, bragged and claimed victory. It is not a common practice for an individual who has been charged to select the investigating judge by whom he will be interrogated. Will you tell me that the investigation is also making headway, since things are apparently moving? Because of those very facts, serious questions arise about the political will to render justice to Jean Léopold Dominique, after 23 months and many other assassinations. In the case of Judge Gassant, one could mention the need for the regime to be careful with a few rich and powerful party members that the investigating judge had not spared, or with members of the judicial branch resentful of that judge who spent several months in the spotlight. In the interest of the State: Appease, in the name of forced reconciliation, adversaries or possible political rivals within the same party facing accelerated implosion.

There are still more serious questions arising: Would it be the case that the healthy wing of this party, who expressed itself for an independent and transparent judicial investigation, is being sacrificed in favor of those who constitute a mafia within the party? Putting the "continuing investigation" on the back burner and forgetting the demands for justice formulated in the emblematic case of Jean Dominique, is that one of the prices that the regime must pay? Power at what price?

Seriously, what has been Judge Gassant’s professional mistake, when the Supreme Court just ruled in his favor over Senior Judge Lise Pierre-Pierre? Why is the Chief of State keeping so silent? We have the right to know. You may remember, Mr. President, the three famous "roch dife" (firestones): Participation, Justice, and Transparency. If it is confirmed, that decision not to renew the mandate of a competent investigating judge after he conducted an investigation for 16 months may seem like an easy way out, in the short term; however, even if it is never explicitly announced, that decision will exert a powerful effect undermining the credibility of the Chief of State. How can someone really expect that Judge Agnant, no matter how competent or dedicated, will manage to bring himself up to date in a matter of days, and work effectively on a difficult and eminently dangerous case, while obviously he will have no special police protection? Is it possible to believe that the purpose is just "the investigation continues?"

In the case of the majority party in the Senate of the Republic, as in the case of the Police, the inability to impose guidelines and to clean up, control, and manage is dramatically eroding the authority of the already weakened State, by projecting the image of a lack of cohesiveness, planning, and, above all, the absence of political will. But is that just an image?

Today, beyond words and promises, the facts indicate that the balls are biased and the regime is affected with a dangerous gangrene. Principles and moral guidelines are compromised every day by political opportunism. Those ideals shared by Jean, including a generous but rigorous socialism, respect for liberties within the framework of democracy, nationalist independence, based on a long history of resistance, those ideals that Jean used to call "Lavalas" are trampled every day in this balkanized State where weapons make right, and where hunger for power and money takes precedence over the general welfare, causing havoc on a party which, paradoxically, controls all the institutional levers of the country. Our concerns run deep, since the cracks are widening and the building will eventually collapse over all of us.

Today, it may be politically incorrect to demand truth and justice, 23 months after the murders of April 3, 2000. All we want is a decent country, and we will never accept a new assassination of Jean Dominique, even perpetrated insidiously.

Response regarding a few points

Recently, several friends forwarded me some of the exchanges that have been taking place about me on the Corbett list. I wanted to take a moment to respond to a few points.

1. The disappearance of the Nanoune Myrthil’s infant

For my part, I first heard about the 29 February 2000 disappearance of Nanoune Myrthil's baby from the General Hospital when Radio Haiti Inter reported on it on 21 June 2001. In a report by Jean-Delec Mezy, the station recounted how a nurse, Yanick Augustin, had been accused of being involved in the disappearance and was slated to appear before a judge that month. I recall that this appearance was postponed several times, and that there were several emotional public appeals by Nanoune Myrthil herself that she and her missing child be given justice. At the time, there much controversy of what exactly had happened to the child and whether or not official pressure was being brought to bear - as it was in the investigation of the slaying of prominent journalist Jean Dominique - to keep the inquiry from reaching some sort of resolution. Some of the transcript of that broadcast can be read here.

Apropos of that, on 3 March 2002, in her editorial, “Is Another Assassination of Jean Dominique about to Take Place?” also on Radio Haiti Inter, Dominique's widow, Michele Montas, bemoaned the fact that “all the resources, i.e. logistical, technical, and financial” made available in the Dominique investigation by the Preval government had been cancelled by the Aristide government, and that “ so were the resources made available for other investigations such as those about the poisoning of children with diethyl glycol or the kidnapping of baby Nanoune Myrtil at the General Hospital.”

During the same address, the full text of which can be read here, Montas said of the Aristide government the following:

The regime is affected with a dangerous gangrene. Principles and moral guidelines are compromised every day by political opportunism. Those ideals shared by Jean (Dominique), including a generous but rigorous socialism, respect for liberties within the framework of democracy, nationalist independence, based on a long history of resistance, those ideals that Jean used to call ‘Lavalas’ are trampled every day in this balkanized State where weapons make right, and where hunger for power and money takes precedence over the general welfare, causing havoc on a party which, paradoxically, controls all the institutional levers of the country. Our concerns run deep, since the cracks are widening and the building will eventually collapse over all of us.

How right she was, it turned out.

In July 2003, Johnny Occilius made his now-famous declaration on Radio Kiskeya of So Anne’s alleged-involvement with the baby’s disappearance and death, followed one month later by former Lavalas deputy mayor of Port-au-Prince Jean-Michard Mercier, who supported in every detail Occilius’ account and expanded upon it. Sonia Desrosiers, the widow of Roland Francois - the Port-au-Prince gang leader who was kidnapped and killed in July 2003 - then gave her own account to Radio Vision 2000. Readers and listeners are free to make up their own minds about the veracity or not of the various explanations of the child's disappearance.

In my view, at least, the episode in no way reflects upon vodou, Haiti’s poignant spiritual blend of its African and European heritage, as a whole. I have enjoyed attendance at many vodou ceremonies around the country since 1997, and urge other journalists to treat the belief system with interest and respect given its political significance to the country.

2. The violence in Martissant/Grand Ravine

Jeb Sprague, whom I have never met or spoken to, first made himself known to me in November 2005, when he emailed to me, unsolicited, a graphic picture of the bullet-riddled, blood-soaked bodies of a Haitian mother and her children along with a smiley-face emoticon and a semi-coherent tirade against myself, the World Bank and the Inter-American Dialogue.

When Sprague writes of the 2006 violence in the Port-au-Prince neighborhood of Martissant that I "essentially ignored the role of the largest and most violent armed group in the area at that time: Lame Ti Manchet,” this is false in several aspects.

As I wrote in an extensively sourced February 2007 article for AlterPresse "The terrible truth about Martissant," the chain of events that Sprague describes bears no resemblance at all to the reality of what journalists such as myself and the reporters of Haiti’s radio stations witnessed on the ground there in the neighborhoods of Grand Ravine, Ti Bois and Descartes during the summer of 2006.

Nevertheless, in both that article and my August 2006 report "Storm of Killing in Neighbourhood Has Wide Implications for Nation," there is in-depth description and analysis of the significant role of the Lame Ti Manchet in the violence.

I understand that on-the-ground reportage may be more time-consuming and at times put one at greater personal risk than simply commenting upon issues from the safety of academia in the United States and Europe, but I really urge Sprague to arise from his desk and spend a bit of time on the ground in Haiti, learning the language, speaking with and traveling among its people. I think it would do wonders towards educating him from having a less internet-based knowledge of the daily lives of the country’s people.

3. Jean-Remy Badio

When Sprague writes, in regards to the killing of Jean-Remy Badio that I "(and Reporters Without Borders likewise) failed to properly attribute the major suspects of this assassination,” this is also false.

I was very happy and proud to lend my voice in solidarity with my courageous Haitian and Caribbean colleagues in aiding in the drafting the Association of Caribbean Media’s “ACM calls for action on Badio killing” on 30 January 2007, the text of which can be read here. The press release read in part as follows:

The Association of Caribbean Media Workers (ACM) is calling on Haitian authorities to move swiftly to bring the killers of Jean-Remy Badio to justice and wants the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) to do more to end the isolation of this Member State... It is especially distressing to note that that Mr. Badio’s murder results from his work in reporting on the operations of organized gangs in the Port-au-Prince suburb of Martissant.

4. Evel Fanfan and AUMOHD

When Sprague writes that I have critizied the work of Evel Fanfan and his organization, the Association des Universitaires Motivés pour une Haiti de Droits (AUMOHD), this is also false. I have never written a line, positive or negative, in reference Fanfan or AUMOHD.

5. Jean-Bertrand Aristide

Regarding Jean-Bertrand Aristide: Though I believe his government exacerbated many of the problems confronting Haiti and lost a golden chance to help move the country forward, he was a symptom, rather than the sole cause, of Haiti’s greater malaise. Impunity, corruption, environmental degradation and an upside-down economic system are the true plagues that are killing Haiti as a state, plagues that many in my own country have unfortunately been all-too-happy to cast their lot in with for a few pieces of gold. Until these corrosive elements in Haiti are definitively addressed and the malefactors both Haitian and foreign prosecuted and made to answer for their crimes, there will be more Duvaliers, Aristides and others like them, and whether called macoute or attache or chimere, their economically desperate and easily-disposable (in their eyes) enforces will continue to operate with the same modus operandi.

Every time I visit Haiti, I see thousands of decent, dedicated people - part of grassroots organizations such as Fonkoze, the Mouvman Peyizan Nasyonal Kongre Papay and others - working towards their country’s reconstruction. A handful of of self-appointed American and European activists can continue to rage all they want on the interent in support of the work of Mr. Aristide’s fabulously compensated American lobbyists, but the violence and vehemence of their rhetoric doesn’t make what they have to say say any more true.

Best regards from Mardi Gras,

MD

History lesson

Final notes on Patrick Elie

For several years now, from time to time I have come across the repeating of a libelous statement that a Haitian political operator named Patrick Elie made about me in the pages of two fringe publications, Michael Albert’s Znet and the former Haiti Progres, which was then edited by the American Kim Ives, before the latter departed to form Haiti Liberté amid charges of nepotism and financial irregularities.

As Mr. Elie, a violent and erratic individual with a history of perjury and other unsavoury activities [1], is such a marginal figure in Haiti's political landscape (despite his desperate courting of foreign journalists) and as Haiti has such genuinely serious problems facing it, save for two paragraphs in an article I wrote in 2006, I thought it best to just to let the matter lie. However, these years later, at the urging of some friends who continue to be concerned about the words of someone as nefarious as Mr. Elie taking root, I will take a moment here to respond in detail as I have not before.

On December 3, 2002, the first anniversary of the murder of the journalist Brignol Lindor, I attended a mass at Petionville's Église Saint Pierre in his honor and the honor of all the other journalists who had died, been attacked or been forced into exile, including Jean Léopold Dominique, the director of Radio Haiti Inter slain in April 2000. At the receiption that morning were Radio Metropole owner Richard Widmayer, Radio Kiskeya programme director Lilianne Pierre-Paul, U.S. Ambassador Brian Dean Curran, then-Haitian Senate President (and future convinced drug trafficker) Fourel Celestin, Radio Haiti Inter's director (and Dominique widow) Michèle Montas and Patrick Elie himself. I briefly alluded to the presence of all of the above in my 2005 book Notes from the Last Testament: The Struggle for Haiti. On that day, I addressed Mr. Elie - whom I had met several times previously - by name and in English on the steps of the Église Saint Pierre.

In a 2006 article on my book, a Canadian writer named Justin Podur, who had visited Haiti only once and spoke no Kreyol, made the use of an expletive-laden diatribe by Mr. Elie to claim that I had falsely stated that Mr. Elie was at Haiti’s Cathedral National that day when he was not.

Simply put, this was a lie.

Mr. Podur, perhaps understandably given his unfamiliarity with Haiti, had confused the Église Saint Pierre with Haiti's National Cathedral, several miles downtown, claiming that was where I had place Mr. Elie, even though my text clearly and repeatedly specified the Église Saint Pierre. Faced with their error, neither Mr. Podur nor Mr. Elie nor Mr. Albert nor Mr. Ives retreated from their libelous claim, perhaps not surprising given their respective characters and the ease with which Mr. Elie, in far graver matters, had previously veered from the truth.

Though I have not wanted to bother her by bringing her into such trivialities, writing to Michele Montas about the incident in question, she responded simply, in a February 17, 2006 email as follows:

I don’t really remember if Patrick was on the steps but he must have been at the Eglise Saint Pierre that day.

Ms. Montas never went public about the incident, nor did I ever ask her to. However, Mr. Elie still trying to pass himself off as anything but the dangerous prevaricator that he is simply won't do, I'm afraid.

Had I enough money, I might indeed have considered hauling Messrs. Podur, Elie, Albert and Ives to court [these people generally attack those without the means to fight back] but, then again, if I had that kind of money it would not doubt be better spent investing in something that actually improves the lives of Haitians, such as the micro-credit institutions FONKOZE, rather than settling scores with dilettantes and political opportunists who discredited themselves long ago.

Attempting to smear someone’s reputation when they threaten powerful forces - in this case former Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his lavishly-funded propaganda machine in the United States - is a very standard trick, one which Mr. Aristide used himself against opponents as diverse as former Port-au-Prince mayor Evans Paul and peasant leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste. I have watched the endless attacks against journalists whom I much admire in countries where I work such as Haiti and Guatemala and, quite honestly, in an odd way, I feel somewhat honored to be considered important enough to be in their company.

By using Mr. Elie - a man with a documented record for rather creepy and potentially lethal plotting - to attack me, people like Justin Podur, Michael Albert and Kim Ives no doubt believed that they would succeed in intimidating into silence my voice in the debate on the fate of Haiti and it’s long-suffering 9 million people.

In this, as in engaging in a meaningful debate on issues such as how we restore Haiti’s peasant agriculture, fix its school system and provide it with a responsive political culture, they failed.

But, anyway, for the record, there it is, the brief and rather boring story. I think that's about all the mention it deserves going forward.


1. Mr. Elie was arrested outside of Washington, DC in April 1996 and jailed in the United States for, among other offences, apparently threatening the life of Haiti's ambassador to the United States at the time, Jean Casimir. Subsequently convicted for falsely claiming to be a diplomat and for using a false address on a federal firearms transaction, court documents (from the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit) show that US diplomatic security and police inventoried from Mr. Elie's hotel room at the time of his arrest a Colt .223 semi- automatic assault rifle with a round in the chamber and six magazines loaded with armour-piercing ammunition, a Remington .22 calibre bolt action rifle equipped with a telescopic sight, a loaded Steyr 9mm semi-automatic pistol with 264 9mm rounds (including 180 rounds of hollow-point ammunition), night vision equipment, two knives, approximately $4,800 in cash, purchase receipts for three additional firearms and documents relating to the activities of Mr. Casimir. Mr. Elie's connections among Haiti's elite economic and political class saved him on that occasion, but one cannot help but to speculate as to what exactly was being planned.

Haiti forms commission to help solve journalist slayings

Haiti forms commission to help solve journalist slayings

The Associated Press

Friday, August 10, 2007

(Read the original here)

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti: Haiti has created an independent commission to speed up stalled investigations into the slayings of journalists in the impoverished nation.

Eight journalists have been killed in the Caribbean country since 2000, and the notoriously weak and corrupt justice system has yet to convict anyone in the deaths.

The nine-member body, made up of Haitian journalists, will review each case and issue public reports on ways to move the investigations forward, commission president Guy Delva said Friday.

"We want to push the justice system to act. If there are obstacles to these cases, we want to know what they are, who is responsible and how to fix them," said Delva, a correspondent for the Reuters news agency and the head of a Haitian press freedom group.

President Rene Preval pledged full support to the commission, the first of its kind in Haiti.

"The state must make providing justice a priority," Preval said at a ceremony to introduce the commission. "I think the journalists, working together with justice officials, can help reinforce justice in the country."

Delva said the body's first task will be to revisit the murder of Haiti's most famous journalist, Jean Dominique, who was gunned down along with a bodyguard outside his radio station on April 3, 2000. Dominique's life was chronicled in the 2003 documentary "The Agronomist," directed by American filmmaker Jonathan Demme.

The probe into his killing has been plagued by delays, missing case files and the resignation of two investigating judges who received death threats. Three early suspects have been killed, including one under mysterious circumstances in police custody.

Dominique's widow, Michele Montas said revisiting his case offers hope after years of frustration.

"He was a symbol that gave a voice to the voiceless, and that voice was silenced," said Montas, who once fled the country because of death threats and now serves as spokeswoman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. "So we're asking for justice for him and everyone else."